After more than a decade on Grey’s Anatomy, Camilla Luddington has had her fair share of goodbyes.
From Ellen Pompeo’s decision to take a step back from her role as Meredith Grey (though she has yet to fully depart the series) to last year’s announcements that Midori Francis and Jake Borelli were leaving the cast, watching fellow costars walk away from the long-running series has become par for the course.
Luddington, who plays Dr. Jo Wilson, tells PEOPLE that though the goodbyes are not easy, she’s learned to welcome new beginnings.
“I think what happens is you have that mourning period where you’re like, ‘Damn, that person’s gone and I really miss them’ and then this other thing happens where suddenly there’s new people and they’re bringing fresh energy, and you have new storylines, and now your storyline’s going in this direction when you thought it was going to go here and this is really exciting,” she says.
“You can’t be on the air for 21 seasons and not have people leave at some point,” she adds. “And I think that kind of ends up being the secret sauce to the show, too, is that we have these new characters. We have characters that leave that come back, and that’s exciting. It’s just part of the magic of the show.”
In recent seasons fans have seen several favorite characters return to their roles for quick visits including Kate Walsh as Addison Montgomery, Jesse Williams as Jackson Avery and in 2020, Patrick Dempsey even returned as Derek Shepherd to visit Meredith in a dream.
And as Luddington explains it, part of that magic also seems to come from the “passion” that still runs through the set — despite what some might think.
“I hear this from guest stars all the time,” she explains. “I think that people might assume at this point that everyone’s sort of phoning it in … or not as passionate or checked out. And the thing that I hear over and over, and it’s really, really true, and it’s not just cast, it’s crew, it’s writers, we are still so passionate about this show.”
“After 21 seasons, we really care. It’s like day one. It’s like a pilot for us. So invested. There’s nobody that’s phoning it in,” she adds. “There’s no one that doesn’t care on our set.”
Looking ahead at her character’s future, Luddington says she sees Jo becoming the chief of Grey Sloan Memorial in 20 years time.
“I just think her taking over, being chief, and I don’t even know how it would go,” she says. “It could could just be great comedy where she’s a hot mess at it, I don’t know, but either way, I just want to see what that looks like.”
“There’s nothing [I love more than] comedy Jo Wilson. So if it is that she’s a hot mess playing chief,” she says with a laugh. “Bring it on.”
Grey’s Anatomy returns to ABC on March 6.